Updates from our ELC Teacher

Welcome to the Cornucopia Foundation's ELC Teacher's blog! ELC stands for our "Environmental Learning Center" where we teach classes to the students at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School and Malibu Middle School. We're located in Malibu, California, on over one acre of beautiful land adjacent to Malibu High School. Follow this link for more information.

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Students from Ms. Threlkeld and Ms. Scheer's classes at Malibu's Juan Cabrillo Elementary School students recently studied the watershed model at The Cornucopia Foundation's Environmental Learning Center.

Students learned what a watershed is, about the water cycle, make predictions about what will happen to pollutants in a watershed when it rains, and learned what happens to pollutants in a watershed when it rains by creating a rain event using the watershed model.

For more information about The Cornucopia Foundation's Environmental Learning Center, please visit: http://cornucopiafoundation.net

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Student's Cornucopia Projects on Display During Open House

This past week student's Cornucopia journals, environmental art projects, and a selection of our unique environmental education lessons where on display at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School's Open House.  Below are a few photos from the open house display.  

Art in Nature - Ms. Jordan and Ms. Mehring's Kindergarten/1st Grade students painted butterflies and learned about symmetry, the life cycle of a butterfly, and structural color.

Colorful Butterflies Made From Coffee Filters with Ms. Weinstock's 1st Grade Class

  Ms. Scheer and Ms. Thorne's 2nd grade students pounded flowers from Cornucopia's Potpourri Patch onto watercolor paper creating stunning works of art. 

The Day in the Life of an Earthworm, creative writing by Ms. Rowland's 4th and 5th grade students. 

Ms. Levy's third grade students had a lesson unit on The Ecological Footprint.  Each student made their own set of footprints out of rocks and pebbles. 

Ms. Matthews 4th and 5th grade students studied math in nature throughout the year.  A few of the topics included measuring and mapping the garden, counting tree stumps while learning about ratios, and lines of symmetry in nature.

The Cornucopia Foundation thanks all of the teachers and staff at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School for opening up their campus and allowing us to showcase the wonderful achievements of that their students accomplished while at the Environmental Learning Center.  

The final few weeks of classes at the ELC will be spent tending to our garden and enjoying a spring harvest of beets, strawberries, carrots, and garlic. 

For more information, please visit us online at: www.cornucopiafoundation.net

Joseph Peck ELC Teacher, The Cornucopia Foundation Malibu, CA

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Spring is in the Air...Students Observing and Interacting with Nature

This past week Students from Juan Cabrillo Elementary School and Malibu Middle School visited us at our Environmental Learning Center to observe and interact with Nature.  Here at the ELC, Nature is teacher and Spring is a wonderful time to experience flowers blooming, seeds sprouting, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds in motion, and the tranquil view of the pacific ocean under the warmth of our Sun. 

Pictured above are tomato seedlings that were grown from seeds in our greenhouse by Ms. Thorne and Ms. Sheer's 2nd grade classes.  Students transfered the seedlings into the vegetable garden, they also planted birdhouse gourd seeds in the pumpkin patch garden.  When students return in the fall they will harvest and decorate the gourds and hang in the garden for birds to enjoy.  

Our 2nd graders also enjoyed quiet time by the creek and in the native garden where they observed and sketched in their journals. 

Malibu Middle School teacher Charles Kertesz brought three of his 8th grade physics classes to the ELC this past week.  Students enjoyed a brief introduction lecture on Heliophysics before exploring resources from NASA and discussing ways to help solve our human problems through studying Natures design.  Solar power and magnetism being a few of the examples.  

This coming week students will be enjoying time at the ELC while learning more about biomimicry through studying butterflies, their lifecycle, and structural color. 

For more information, please visit us online at: www.cornucopiafoundation.net

Joseph Peck ELC Teacher, The Cornucopia Foundation Malibu, CA

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Harvesting Radishes

Ms. Mehring's Kindergarten, Ms. Weinstock's 1st grade and Ms. Mock's Life Skills classes from Juan Cabrillo Elementary School in Malibu, CA harvested radishes at The Cornucopia Foundation's Environmental Learning Center this past week.  Students planted radish seeds in late February while learning about root vegetables.  

In addition to pulling up their radish roots, students helped in making a raw radish salad.  Initially, many students were skeptical to try the salad, but once they had a taste they couldn't get enough, asking for seconds, thirds and fourths.

Juan Cabrillo students have also planted carrot (2nd grade) and beet (3rd grade) root vegetables in the ELC garden, students are anticipating the harvest of the crops in May. 

For more information, please visit us online at: www.cornucopiafoundation.net

Joseph Peck ELC Teacher, The Cornucopia Foundation Malibu, CA

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After a two-week long spring break, students returned to the ELC (Environmental Learning Center) well rested and enthusiastic to learn from nature.   The topic for this past week was bees. 

1st graders studied the life cycle of bees, their roles, and interesting facts such as a bee flaps its wings 200 times per second.  

2nd graders discovered that bees communicate through a dance known as the waggle and sketched bees in the garden and labeled the three parts of a bees anatomy.  

3rd graders designed and built hexagon structures to mimicking the way bees design their hive cells.  They also learned that bees have five eyes and the lenses are hexagonal shaped.  A few examples of innovations inspired through studying structures built by bees are packing materials, airplane wings, and insulating glass. 

Next week our theme is Earth Day, plus Kindergarten and first graders will harvest radishes and make a salad. 

For more information please visit us at www.cornucopiafoundation.net

Joseph Peck ELC Teacher, The Cornucopia Foundation Malibu, CA

(Photos: Ms. Levy's 3rd grade students from Juan Cabrillo Elementary School studying bees and designing hexagon structures from recycled cardboard at The Cornucopia Foundation's Environmental Learning Center.)

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Nature Inspires our Human Built Environment

Greetings from The Cornucopia Foundation's Environmental Learning Center. Much is happening on our soil here on the west side of Malibu.  Our Juan Cabrillo Elementary students have been quite active learning from nature while in nature.  

This past week our 3rd grade students explored the word Biomimicry, Bio = Life and Mimic is to imitate and participated in several activities that broadened their understanding of how nature is the best teacher for designing and developing our human built world.  For more information on Biomimicry, please visit http://biomimicry.net

Last week 5th graders wrote creatively in their journals about wind and weather. This week 4th and 5th graders are exploring their wants vs needs and discussing how they can contribute to a more sustainable society as a result of their actions.  

Ms. Rowland's 5th Grade Class

1st graders planted wheat grass seeds last week and will be juicing their grass within the next few weeks. This week they will be planting sunflower seeds and learning interesting facts such as the head of a sunflower contains up to 2000 individual flowers and sunflowers are native to the Americas.  

Ms. Weinstock's 1st Grade Class

Until next time, keep looking to Nature for inspiration in our human built world, Nature knows best! 

-Joseph 

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Sowing Seeds

Students from Juan Cabrillo Elementary School have recently been planting in the vegetable garden at Cornucopia's Environmental Learning Center.  Kindergarten and 1st grade have sowed radish seeds, 2nd graders planted several varieties of carrots, and 3rd graders beets.  The 4th grade planted pepper seeds which are sprouting in our greenhouse along with tomatoes. Last month 4th graders also transplanted spider plants and learned about how they remove toxins from the air.  

Ms. Weinstock's 1st Grade Students Planting Radish Seeds.  

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Learning From Nature

A few weeks ago Malibu Middle School 8th grade students transplanted venus fly traps while learning about bio-inspired applications from carnivorous plants.  They learned that these “meat-eating” plants trap and eat insects or small animals through the use of active or passive traps.

Last week kindergarten, 1st grade and life skill students studied ecosystems, and 3rd graders planted beets in our vegetable garden. Our 4th graders studied plant galls, created the life cycle of the cynipid wasp in their journal, discovered plant galls at our ELC, and learned that our Declaration of Independence was written in iron oak gall ink.

This coming week students will continue to discover the wonders of nature and learn how to live more sustainable while at the Environmental Learning Center.   Topics for this week include the planting of seeds in a greenhouse and spider plants.  

In Nature,

Joseph Peck The Cornucopia Foundation Environmental Learning Center Teacher

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Students Plant Garlic and Explore Ecosystems

During the last several weeks students at our Environmental Learning Center participated in planting garlic and learned about ecosystems. 

During our garlic lesson, students: 

learned that plants come from seeds.

learned that garlic is a root vegetable.

prepared soil for planting.

planted garlic cloves in our garden.

learned about various uses for garlic.  

During our Web of Life class, students:

explored various components of an ecosystem.

learned about causes and effects on ecosystems.

learned how different organisms contribute to one another in nature.

played the web of life game. 

sang the song "Take Care", from the Biomimicry Institutes "Ask the Planet" CD. 

This week students will be learning about shapes in nature and checking in on their garlic to see if any have sprouted! 

Kindly,

Joseph Peck Cornucopia Foundation Teacher 

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WELCOME LETTER FROM OUR ELC TEACHER

Dear Students, Parents, and Teachers:

I am thrilled to be back at The Cornucopia Foundation’s Environmental Learning Center for another year of helping students connect with and learn from Nature.  Engaging our student learners in meaningful hands on activities that opens their sense of wonderment and fascination with the natural world is one of our missions at the ELC.  Nature has been perfecting itself for about 3.8 billion years and is the ideal teacher for showing us how to do things.  In studying and learning from nature our students, our  future leaders are discovering ways to solve problems in our human built world.   Some of the topics we will be exploring this year are Biomimicry, Permaculture, Composting & Worm Farming, Planting & Harvesting, Animals in Nature, and Nature Journaling.

Please keep checking back to our ELC Blog page where I will be posting weekly updates on our classes.

With Sincere Gratitude,

Joseph Peck

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CORNUCOPIA ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING CENTER

Cornucopia’s Environmental Learning Center is located on an acre of land at the rear of Malibu High School next to the tennis courts (click here for map). This degraded piece of land was overgrown with fennel and weeks. We hand-cleared this acre with workers and volunteers using no herbicides or pesticides. As you probably know, fennel is a very strong determined plant with a deep taproot. Clearing it by hand, and re-clearing and re-clearing took months and months of back-breaking work.

It was all worth it once we planted the native and drought tolerant gardens which are now home to all manner of birds, lizards, pollinators, little critters and a very brazen, inquisitive bunny.

We’ve completed the shaded natural teaching amphitheater, planted wind screens, and the worm farm (the red wigglers are in residence and eating away producing their wonderful rich castings for the gardens)  We’ll next work on the yurt, secret garden, more picnic tables for eating and working, the pond, greenhouse and tool shed.

Best of all, the teachers and children are in residence. It is presently being used by the Before and After School Enrichment Program, Summer Program and also a Science Teacher. Needless to say, the class mascot iguana is in total heaven to be out in Nature.

In October, another Malibu school will participate in a riparian restoration project on the degraded stream that runs along the side of this property and down to the ocean. When we first found the stream, it wasn’t even flowing in this area – it was hidden underneath big chunks of asphalt and plywood that had been thrown into the creek. You can imagine what other kinds of junk were also thrown into this creek.

We did an initial clearing of the stream area, but realized it would be such a teaching opportunity for students to be involved with the restoration of a watershed.

We also envision wonderful music, plays, art, poetry, writing, history and math classes here (what better place to learn the Fibonacci sequence or fractals than Hands On/Minds On in this Nature classroom

It is our firm belief that the future of our Planet is not by chance… It is by choice. We hope that sustainability will be your choice as well, and that you’ll consider supporting Cornucopia with donations (money or in-kind) or volunteering.